


Homecoming

by cherryade



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, fix-it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 17:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2237394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryade/pseuds/cherryade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Ward wasn't HYDRA. He was undercover and now he's coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Headcannon from when I refused to believe that Ward was actually HYDRA. Then the show progressed and shattered my dreams.
> 
> I wish the characters were mine, but nope. The only thing I own is the amount of feels I have for this man.

“Sir, there’s been a breakout at the Fridge.”

Coulson closes his eyes and runs a hand down his face. He’s not paid enough for this. (He’s not paid at all now that everything has gone to shit and his whole team’s in hiding.) 

“How many?” he asks. He hopes the number’s under ten.

“One,” says Fitz.

Coulson drops his hand. A huff of relief escapes him. 

“That’s not so bad,” he says, before wondering at the new low his standards were reduced to. He moves to stand behind Fitz, bracing himself against the back of his chair. “Who is it?”

Fitz does not look at his boss. 

“Ward,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. He taps something out on the keyboard. On the screen, a short video clip of a man disappearing through a hole in the wall winks into existence.

Coulson takes two steps back and falls into the chair he vacated. 

“Oh joy,” he says. “Now we have to fix that wall.”

\--

Fitz freezes. 

He increases the size of the video on the security feed and his hand clenches around the gun he keeps on the small shelf under the table.

“Sir,” he says. Coulson looks up from his papers, an expectant look on his face. “Ward’s at the door.”

Coulson jumps to his feet, striding across the room in two swift strides. The man in the image is unmistakably Ward, his tall frame hunched as he curled his left arm protectively around his torso, gun held loosely in his right hand. 

Coulson reaches across the control panel to push the comm button. There’s a click before his voice echoes through the Playground. 

“We have a situation. Fitz and I are in security. Prep icers only.” 

There is another click as he lifts his hand and reaches for the gun strapped to his belt, deftly swapping out the cartridge for one containing icer rounds. He stares grimly at the figure on the screen.

“How did he even get this far without getting blown up by our security measures?” Fitz asks. His gun is sitting in his lap. “What do you think he wants?”

“I don’t know,” Coulson replies evenly, his eyes never leaving the screen. Behind him, the door slides open and May slips silently into the room. “But we’re about to find out.”

\--

Ward stands before the imposing metal rollers of the Playground. He’s tired, thirsty and in a world of pain but he knows he has a long way to go before any of that is resolved. He glances up at where he knows the security camera is located before reaching into his pocket. His ribs throb even though he’s careful and he can’t stop the hiss that escapes his lips. Slowly, he withdraws his blinking badge and holds it up to the camera. 

He hopes Fury wasn’t screwing with him.

\--

“What’s up, AC?” Skye asks as when she walks into the security room, Simmons beside her. 

Simmons looks at the expression on Fitz’s face and blanches. 

“Skye,” Coulson starts slowly, as he steps forward. He grips her shoulder gently. “Ward’s at the door.”

Skye’s confused expression darkens into anger. 

“What?” she says, deadly calm. “That’s not possible. Simmons and I have been trying to track him through his chip. It would’ve shown up if he was anywhere near here.”

She shoulders her way through Triplett and May, towards the screen of the control panel. Her heart is pounding out of her chest as the figure on the screen looks directly at her.

He’s a mess. His black shirt is torn in places, face unshaven and grubby. But the thing that haunts her is his eyes. She has never seen him like this, pain and desperation and something she can’t identify boring right into her and she can’t look away. 

She watches as he struggles to pull something out of his pocket. 

“What’s that?” she hears someone, Triplett, say. Fitz enlarges the video. It’s a badge and it’s blinking.

Coulson stares at the screen for a beat and bolts for the door.

\--

Ward’s legs are trembling as he stands outside in the heat. He can feel blood sliding down his side and he doesn’t remember when he pulled his stitches. He has trekked through the darkest corners of the world, stared down the most vicious villains and infiltrated an evil organisation bent on world domination and yet he has never been so terrified in his life.

The door slides open. For a large metal door, it goes soundlessly, retracting into the ceiling as if it never existed. He looks up at them and his heart is hammering.

They stand in a loose V before him, Coulson in the centre. He makes eye contact with the barrel of Coulson’s gun before flicking his gaze to the man himself. His eyes are hard as flint, brow furrowed. 

“Drop the gun, Ward,” he snaps. The gun slips easily from his hands and lands on the floor with a muffled thump. The team advances towards him. His gaze darts to the left and he scans the winking barrels and cold eyes. When he reaches the far right, he stops and his breath stutters out of his lungs.

Skye.

She’s glaring right back at him, a defiant tilt to her chin, the gun unwavering in her grip. He wants to reach for her and hold on, tell her that it’s finally over but his voice catches in his throat and his knees give out.

He hits the ground hard, his kneecaps thumping against the ground. Something jars inside him and he whites out.

\--

He comes to to the sound of something beeping. 

A dull throbbing pain is spread across his chest and down his torso, making every breath a struggle. He feels something hard and plastic clamped over his nose and mouth and something metal tethering him to the bed and he panics.

The steady beeping winds into a frenzy, the individual sounds blurring together in his head, sending his panic skyrocketing. He twists on the bed, eyes popping open as a muffled moan escapes his lips. The dull ache explodes through his body causing tears to spring from his eyes.

A dark shape looms over him and he flinches, slamming his eyes shut.

“Relax,” he hears a voice say and through his panic and fear, he knows that voice. His heart rate slows gradually, the death grip he had on the sheets unclenching. He feels a hand across his brow and he leans into the touch. A warm sensation fills his veins and he sighs.

“Sleep, we’ve got a lot to talk about,” the voice says again.

Ward breathes out a sigh. It sounds a lot like “Skye.”

\--

The second time he wakes up, he’s propped up by the bed and the oxygen mask is gone. The metal rings around his wrists solidify in his mind to form handcuffs. The cobwebs in his mind have cleared, leaving him slightly more lucid than before. The pain of before has subsided into an annoying ache that he can handle. 

“You’re awake,” comes a voice from his right. Ward opens his eyes and turns his head to sound. Skye is looking at him. He squirms under the attention.

“Wha’ happened?” he rasps, wincing. His throat feels like it’s lined with razors and the pain in his chest spikes. Skye says nothing as she reaches towards the bedside table and brings a cup with a straw to his lips. He sips gratefully and pulls his head away when he has had enough.

Skye just looks at him.

“You’re asking me?” she snaps. He missed this, the fiery anger in her eyes when she’s riled up. He missed her. He hates that it’s directed at him, but he’ll explain until she understands. He’ll explain until they all understand.

“Skye, listen,” he starts, trying to put to words the things he has been involved in for the past few months. 

“No, you shut up, and you listen,” she says, her eyes flashing. “You don’t get to crawl back to us after you betrayed us for HYDRA. You don’t get to sit there and tell me to listen because your lies make me sick. What you will tell me, is how this badge ended up in your possession.” 

She pulls his badge from her pocket and drops it on the bed. Ward closes his eyes and inhales. When he opens them again, Skye is staring at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Will you believe me if I told you?” he responds and immediately knows it’s the wrong thing to say. Skye snatches the badge from the bed and stands up. 

“You’re right,” she says and his heart breaks. “I told Coulson it was a bad idea to send me in here. I’ll get May.”

Ward panics. He knows if she leaves, he’ll never be alone with her again.

“Wait,” he almost shouts, pulling on his restraints. He is desperate to get to her, to make her understand. Skye stops and turns. Her face is set in a mask of anger but her eyes are hurt. Ward wants to scream in frustration. He curses Fury in his head for making him do this.

“Get Coulson and tell him to bring his badge,” he says, hoping her curiosity would dispel her anger for awhile. Skye’s anger melts into confusion. He stares at her, drinking in the sight of the woman he’d only let himself dream of for the past few months. 

Skye walks to the wall and removes the phone from the receiver, punching a few buttons with a finger. Ward waits. She mutters something into the phone and places it back into its cradle.

“You better not be messing around,” she says, then there is silence.

\--

The door slides open and Coulson steps in. Skye tears her gaze from the wall and looks at him. Ward has his eyes closed. Coulson picks up the chair from beside the door and drops it next to the bed. He settles himself on the chair and holds his badge out.

“You have five minutes to explain yourself,” he says evenly. Ward opens his eyes.

“Put mine on top of yours with the logos touching each other,” he instructs. Coulson and Skye share a look.

“If this is a trap,” Coulson says, “I will re-break your ribs one by one.”

He presses the two badges together and for a moment, nothing happens. Ward’s breath catches in his throat. If Fury played him, nothing in the universe would stop him from hunting him down and strangling him with his bare hands.

Light flickers from both badges and Ward exhales. A beam of light emerges from between the two, and a holographic figure flickers into existence. Skye gasps, Coulson’s brows furrow.

Nick Fury stands for a moment before them in all his holographic glory, before opening his mouth to speak. 

“Director Coulson,” he says, his voice coming from the badges clasped between the man’s hands. “Trust him. I put him up to this.” The figure flickers out of existence as quickly as it appeared.

Both Coulson and Skye stare at the spot where Fury stood seconds before. Ward fidgets. What he says next could either tear him apart or make him whole again.

“I was undercover the whole time,” he tells the wall. “Director Fury contacted me after Coulson was taken saying that he had a job for me. He suspected that there was something within SHIELD, something that wasn’t supposed to be there and he wanted me to take it out. What else could I say? I had to agree. Turns out, he suspected Garrett all along and he needed someone close to him to gain intel.” 

He pauses to catch his breath, doesn’t look at their faces.

“I was doing fine until a couple of weeks ago when someone in the Fridge caught me passing information on to one of the agents there. HYDRA was planning an uprising from within the Fridge. They cornered me but I managed to blow a hole in the wall with some stuff Fury left me and escaped.”

“That doesn’t explain how you got beaten up so badly,” Skye says and Ward jumps. Her eyes are full of unshed tears.

“I don’t know how they got the message out but those who managed to evade capture found out and found me while I was making my way here. Luckily enough, I was just a couple of miles out or else I would never have made my way here. I had to walk the last few cause I had to leave the bike I hotwired behind.”

Ward turns to meet Coulson’s eye and lets the older man study him. He feels exposed, flayed and laid bare and yet he doesn’t look away. He needs to make Coulson understand because if Coulson understands, the rest would too. Something flickers in the depths of Coulson’s gaze and disappears before Ward can identify it.

He stands. 

“Get some rest, Agent Ward,” he says softly. The calm and impersonal tone of before is now replaced by something else. He reaches down and unlocks the cuffs around Ward’s wrists. Ward releases a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. The adrenaline is fading and he feels himself go boneless with relief. Coulson leans down and murmurs in his ear, "Do this again and you will know why the junior agents are more scared of me than Agent May."

He offers him a smile before disappearing through the door.

\--

Skye is staring at him again.

Ward closes his eyes against it. If Coulson’s gaze made him feel exposed, her’s made him burn with guilt and shame.

“You should have told me,” she whispers, breaking the silence.

“I couldn’t,” he replies, willing her to understand.

“You shouldn’t have had to do this alone. It mustn’t have been easy for a man like you.”

Ward opens his eyes and catches her gaze. Tears are falling down her beautiful face and Ward hates himself for being the cause of it.

“I’ve told you before, Skye. I’m not a good man.”

Skye leans forward and traps his hand in hers. Electricity shoots up his spine. It feels like home. 

“Ward, I know you,” she says simply. 

“How could you believe me so easily?”

“I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I’ve been searching for a reason why you would betray us like that and now I’ve found it. You didn’t. Not really.”

Ward wants to argue but he feels the heavy pull of fatigue drag at him. He sighs as he leans back into the pillows, his eyes slipping shut of their own volition. 

“You’re tired,” Skye says. Her hand never slips out of his as she adjusts the blankets. “Sleep, I’ll be here. We can continue this later.”

This time, her tone is fond and he relaxes completely. He hasn’t had a break in months but with her watching over him, he’ll be alright.

The weight of her hand in his is warm as he drifts off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a beta and I didn't manage to rewatch the episodes needed to make this really right so if you see anything out of place/think someone's OOC, please let me know! Thanks for reading (:


End file.
